Poor Man About Town

I was driving home last night - the roads were packed out with traffic. I saw one of those Foxton's BMW minis - the sort that is dressed in sports-car livery. I realised that each of these wagons has a name. Being stuck in traffic, I decided to try and give the Foxton's BMW Mini a new name - flights of fancy produced The Hoxton Dickhead; The Realty Strangler; The Turbo Turd &c. I saw a twelve year old male driving said vehicle - I thought "if he is trying to pull with that, he might as well be driving a milk float!" Oh well, at least Foxton's seem to be restoring the good name of other estate agents.

Labels: cars, Estate Agents, Lifestyle

We are living in a time when economics and the market have become the driving forces behind how we live and how are culture is defined. A good example of this is around accommodation or dwelling. Property developers and many companies who flog or rent properties no longer use the words home, flat, house, dwelling - they now use the word "development", "luxury apartments", "property", "investment" etc. It's as if these bastards are doing a splendid job in alienating people - being without a decent home. A really good example of alienation. House and home no longer exist. When more well-off people buy a house, they no longer buy a house they buy into greed - buy to let, buy to exploit. We shall have to wait and see how this very nasty development will pan out on the social and cultural landscape.

On an indirectly related note, I went past a Foxton's Estate Agent today. I thought it was a coffee bar - coffee and ice cold soft-drinks available to customers. The decor looked like a fucking multi-coloured nightmare - furniture in cardinal colours - all brightly lit with neon - you would need a welder's mask to walk into the place. The place looked as if it suffered too much interior design - panache and style were conspicuous by their absence. The employees appeared to be twelve year olds in suits. My suspicions were confirmed - Foxton's exist solely to encourage people to flog their property through other better established estate agents.

Labels: culture, Economics, Estate Agents, Greedy Property Developers, property, Society

I received two junk mail communiques from Foxtons, the Estate Agent, today. They invited me for coffee at one of their shops. The purpose of which was the prospect of letting my home to more desireable and more monied tenants. Is this one of the ways how people are made homeless?

Are estate agents pandering to the greed of the landlord and in so doing throwing people out of their homes?

It seems that this particular estate agent has been given some of its clients an awful lot of fun and somebody has become so vexed by them that s/he has devoted an entire web site to the obviously s/he may have experienced by them.

One of the monied and better tenants, paying £210 in rent per week to Foxtons, was so impressed with their service that s/he moved to comment

Can we really believe this landlord about the splendid service that Foxtons provided him / her? No, can't be true! Surely not Foxtons

Surely it can't be true.

Another satisfied customer

So impressed was this person with the service supplied by the said estate agent that s/he was moved to comment

Maybe I should go, drink their coffee and pocket (as would Ed Reardon) any Danish Pastries or sausage rolls which might be available. Then I shall exchange bogus details about my property give them a bogus phone number - methinks that another branch of Foxtons would suffice. Bingo, I have shall have free coffee, free eats and helping Foxtons staff to waste their time! Cannot think of a more imaginative way of spending a relaxing evening.

I think that Foxtons must have a huge carbon footprint, why did they need to send two communiques whereas one would have sufficed.

For more information check out this article

I get the feeling that Foxton's existence is necessary - it seems that they exist to suggest that you check out other estate agents rather than them.

Labels: accommodation, Estate Agents, homeless, homelessness, housing market, Society

Another overheard phone call, there was this African lady on the bus remonstrating with her estate agent for marketing her house at too high a price. She was really annoyed, she said that there is a one bed room flat being sold in her area for £150 000. Her three bed house, it seems, is on the market for £280 000. No one will buy. After much haggling with the estate agent, they agreed a new price of £210 000! That's some reduction. It just goes to show that sellers find it difficult to exert any control over the house they want to sell.

Labels: cartels, Estate Agents, Greedy Property Developers, Housing, housing market

There are so many drinking schools around where I live, that the area has become Drinking Academy. You see people clutching tins of beer and strong cider. People in supermarkets buying a bottles of spirits. Then you have the wrecks who collapse anywhere in the street. As I was leaving for work in the morning, I saw what I thought to be a pile of clothes on the corner, as I got closer it was a man in a state of alcoholic catatonia clutching a beer can with another propped by his head to consume for breakfast. I guess that it is the norm around here, no doubt property developers and estate agents will disapprove and have the police move them on to somewhere else and make the place prohibitively expensive in which to live. I don't mind drunks, they keep out the rich.

Stop rising home prices, evict the rich!

Labels: alcoholism, drunks, Estate Agents, Property Development

I was passing through Lavender Hill, Battersea SW11 on the bus today. I was amazed by the number of estate agents alive and kicking in the area. Every other shop was an estate agent, there was even a cluster of three different estate agents next to each other. This was unreal, this was mad. Has the local economy become so dependent on the buying and selling of its houses.

Is this the South Sea Bubble revisited. When this fucking blows, it will be an economic tsunami. Already the cracks are starting to appear. City gents are already starting to throw themselves out of buildings.

Labels: Economics, Estate Agents, Greedy Property Developers